Tuesday, June 09, 2015

"I'm a lifelong Republican, BUT…": Watch Out for the Moby

And what is the definition of the moby (such as, f'r'instance, "liberal trolls pretending to be Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) [and] creating fake “hate” against women")?

An insidious and specialized type of left-wing troll who visits blogs
and impersonates a conservative for the purpose of either spreading
false rumors intended to sow dissension among conservative voters, or
who purposely posts inflammatory and offensive comments for the purpose
of discrediting the blog in question.

The term is derived from the name of the liberal musician Moby, who
famously suggested in February of 2004 that left-wing activists engage
in this type of subterfuge:

“For example, you can go on all the pro-life
chat rooms and say you’re an outraged right-wing voter and that you
know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and
paid for her to get an abortion. Then you go to an anti-immigration Web
site chat room and ask, ‘What’s all this about George Bush proposing
amnesty for illegal aliens?’”

The strategy has been frequently attempted on conservative blogs,
but has not been nearly as effective as Moby envisioned, since false
rumors are easily debunked by fact-checking minions, and cartoonishly
extreme commenters often get immediately identified as mobys and banned.

Left wing troll who tries to imitate a right winger, usually poorly due
to left wing's complete misunderstanding of who right wingers are. Often
given away by telltale first line, "I'm a lifelong Republican, BUT..."
or "As a lifelong Republican, I have to disagree with (Republican
figure)..."

Moby: I'm a lifelong Republican, but it turns my stomach when I see the
fascist rantings of these town hall protesters. What they are doing is
worse than Hitler! I am going to vote Democrat until this stops and you
should too!